Around 200 children in several countries were conceived with sperm from a single donor who unknowingly carried a rare genetic mutation linked to early onset cancers, it has been revealed. The consequences have been devastating. Several children have already died and many families across Europe are now facing a risk they never expected.
The case has prompted urgent questions. How was one donor used so widely? Why did standard safeguards fail to identify a mutation that can have such severe consequences? And how did a system created to create families allow a tragedy of this scale?
